


Ten Years

by SwaggerDownTheStreet



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Imaginary Friends, Jack Frost Needs A Hug, Jack Has Issues, Jack Needs a Hug, Poor Jack Frost, Sad (ish) Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 22:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20347480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwaggerDownTheStreet/pseuds/SwaggerDownTheStreet
Summary: 300 years alone can get to you. So that's why Jack decides that if he can't find a friend he'll just have to make one. Even if it is just a lump of ice.





	Ten Years

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me while I was supposed to be sleeping and I just had to get it out of my head I'm sorry. Jack is a very sad boy and he needs hugs. Takes place maybe a century or so after Jack was resurrected from the pond/lake/whatever you wanna call it. 
> 
> Also: For future reference, in my head, Jack is physically/mentally 14 years old.

As he sat in a tree at the edge of his pond, Jack Frost felt very alone. Earlier that day, he had slid across the ice in his bare feet, carefully avoiding the children but making sure they all had fun. He had managed to pretend for a few hours that maybe they could see him. Then, as they almost always did in the end, one child walked straight through him in his hurry to get home, and Jack was reminded once more that he didn't exist to these people.

Just one person. One person to listen to him, to know of his presence. During the first few years of his life, Jack had tried to talk with other spirits. Unfortunately for him, most of the other spirits didn't like him very much. Others downright hated him. So he remained alone.

Jack's eyes wandered around the clearing subconsciously, and they rested on a small figure in the snow. He frowned, dropping to the ground. Upon further investigation, he found that they figure was a small ragdoll. He knew which child this belonged to, and he also knew that she would want it back. So he took it upon himself to return it.

* * *

Touching down in front of the small wooden house, Jack contemplated how he would go about doing this. He couldn't very well walk into the house and give it to her. No, if he did that she might get scared, perhaps thinking that her doll was haunted.

After some consideration, Jack laid the doll on the ground in front of the door. He knocked three times on the door, hoping someone might hear. Moments passed, and the doll began to fade into the steadily falling snow. Just when Jack began to think that nobody had heard after all, the wooden door creaked open and a young girl peeked out.

Her eyes scanned the snow, completely oblivious to the frost spirit standing right outside her door. Finally, they landed on the doll. She gasped, grabbing it from the snow and brushing the flakes off gently, hugging the doll to her chest and scolding it gently, as if it were a real person, "Molly! I've been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been? Don't you ever scare me like that again, do you hear me?" Finally, she brought 'Molly' back inside, still explaining that she might catch a cold. Jack sighed and let the wind carry him away.

* * *

As Jack was flying above the earth, he mulled over the girl's behavior toward her doll, and a thought occured to him. Stopping to hover in the clouds, Jack held his free hand out and blew into it. With some concentration, he soon held the small figure of a smiling young boy. It wasn't very realistic, but Jack didn't care. He smiled at the lump of ice, pretending it was a real person with whom he could converse and spend time with. It would need a name.

"Daniel," Jack said after a moment's hesitation, "Hello, Daniel." Daniel smiled up at him. Jack smiled back.

* * *

For about a decade after that, Jack brought Daniel with him everywhere he went. He would have imaginary conversations with it, imagining that the ice doll would respond. He would bring Daniel with him when he played tricks on someone, or when he tried to break into North's workshop.

Somehow, Daniel's very presence seemed to comfort Jack. That is, until the day it didn't.

Jack sat leaning against a tree outside of Burgess, at the edge of his pond. The ice doll, Daniel, rested in his lap, quite still and silent. The pond itself was thawing, the spring season rapidly approaching. Only a few large chunks of ice floated in the pond like miniature glaciers. There were patches of green here and there in the snow, but although most people would see it as a sign of new life and hope, all it meant to Jack was that soon he would have to leave the closest thing he had to a proper home.

"Why do you carry that thing around with you?" Jack started at the sound of a painfully familiar voice. He looked around to see a young brunette woman in a sundress, "It's never going to do anything for you."

Jack glared at her, "Why are you even here, Hope? Spring isn't for another few weeks." Was it, though? Jack was never really good at keeping track of time.

Hope smirked, crossing her arms and shivering slightly, though she hid it well, "I thought I'd come and see if you were gone yet. Clearly you're not." She said the last part with a note of distaste in her voice.

Jack turned back to the pond, "Winter isn't over yet. You don't have any business here. So goodbye." The last part was accompanied by a little wave.

A few moments passed in silence, and Jack let himself hope that maybe the haughty spirit of spring had left. Of course, that was when she had to speak up, "I'll go. I only stopped to talk to you because of that thing," she flipped a hand at Daniel the ice doll, "I was just interested to know if you realize yet that it's just a chunk of ice that isn't going to acknowledge you anytime soon." Before Jack could come up with a good retort, she let her springtime wind sweep her into the air, and she was gone.

Jack looked at the little figure. He thought about all the times he had vented to it, let out his feelings when no one else was around. He thought about how he would hold it to his chest when he was feeling lonely, and how it would never respond, simply looking at him with that frozen stare.

Jack was silent for quite a while, staring at the doll, contemplating it's actual worth. Finally, his shoulders drooped in defeat. He gripped his staff and let his wind carry him into the sky. He hesitated for a second, but as he passed over the pond, he let the little doll slip from his grasp. For a brief moment, the little ice figure was suspended in the air, not touching a thing.

Then it hit the water, sinking below the surface, down to the bottom where it would melt and return to the cycle of nature. Daniel's creator didn't look back as he came to rest at the bottom of the pond. And with him sank ten years of confessions, hopes, experiences. With him sank ten years of companionship. Ten years of the life of Jack Frost.

Ten years.


End file.
